Our Programs
 

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August 25 to August 29, 2008

Our Programs

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A TYPICAL DAY

First day
 
Students arrive Monday afternoon, check in, register and then get acquainted, jamming around the swimming pool or a trail walk through the woods. Auditions will be held to determine individual interests and the appropriate level for group classes and ensembles to be held throughout the session.

After dinner, our first 2-hour seminar begins, with handouts and an overview of what we will be learning. Our first informal concert will be performed by faculty members, followed by an informal jam with the students. After each seminar the students will form smaller group classes where individual needs will be addressed.


8:00 am 8:45 am          Breakfast

9:00 am 11:00 am        First seminar

11:00 am 11:45 am      Small group lessons, question and answer period

12:00 pm 12:45 pm       Lunch

1:00 pm 3:00 pm          Second seminar

3:00 pm 4:00 pm          Small group lessons

4:00 pm 6:00 pM           Free time: practicing, jamming, swimming, napping, ...

6:00 pm 6:45 pm           Dinner

7:00 pm 9:00 pm           Third seminar

9:00 pm 11:00 pm         Evening activities : concerts, music circles, ...
 
11:00 pm---Jamming, practicing, sleeping, ...



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Who attends The Guitar Summit

The Guitar Summit is open for beginner to advanced students aged 14 through adult. Students come from a wide variety of backgrounds including young-aspiring guitarists, adult hobbyists, high school students preparing for a university music degree programs, part time and full time working professional musicians.

Arrangements for family members or friends may be made with the addition of room and meal expenses. Have your entire band members attend and receive a package discount.


OUR CLASSES
 
Focus will be on  styles that include jazz, blues, rock & metal, finger style, with conceptual approaches that will expand your personal understanding and creativity.

Our world class guest instructors, including Jon Damian and Jake Langley are on hand for the entire week and will be holding small group lessons every day as well as conducting seminars every day.



  • Beginners  this group of students will focus on learning how to build basic triads, how to add colour to chords by adding other notes onto the basic triad, learn to understand chord symbols and what the letters and numbers represent and how to quickly identify them. You learn the diatonic chords, the diatonic scale and Penta-Tonic (5-note) scale, our main source for melodies and improvisations.  We show you how to embellish chords up and down the neck, create melodies that fit with the harmonies (the chords), as well as all the different inversions of chords and how to find them. Every day, as you learn the different techniques and tricks, you will apply it immediately to a song.
 

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Some of the topics and techniques for everyone

  • bending,
  • hammer-ons,
  • pull-offs,
  • slides,
  • octaves (see double stops)
  • intervals (see double stops)
  • chord progressions that appear in every song,
  • power chords (see double stops)
  • pentatonic scales in all 5 positions,
  • learn the true major pentatonic and the true minor pentatonic
  • relative minors and secondary relative minors
  • arpeggios and how to build our own,
  • the modes in relation to there chords
  • why do we have to know the modes?
  • chord embellishments - make the music come alive,
  • double stops and bending them,
  • ghost notes and creating illusion,
  • sweeping - forward and backward sweeps,
  • delivering the notes, attacks and dynamics,
  • developing perfect rhythm made easy,
  • funky rhythms made easy,
  • comping, feeling the rhythm
  • walking bass lines and how to build them
  • how to harmonize a walking bass line,
  • harmonics,
  • artificial harmonics,
  • playing a blues melody while comping with yourself,
  • the upper strata or upper structure and how to use it 
  • more.

 
 

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  • Advancing  with understanding. Students will focus on harmony on the guitar with single note, double stop and chord soloing. The concept of melodic harmonization, or chord soloing will be looked at in great detail. Harmonizing the melodic chord tones will be made easy. Harmonizing the non chord tones in the melody using different harmonic approaches including  adding a note from the upper structure, the entire upper strata, dominant approach, chromatic approach, II-7  V7 approaches, tri-tone substitutes will all be clarified.

  • Many mysteries will be revealed, many will remain for you to  discover.
     
    The guitar summit aims to equip you with the tools to uncover them.